American art articles and essays from Resource Library Magazine; May, 2004

(above: George Bellows, The Teamster, 1916, oil on canvas, 38 ? 44 inches, Farnsworth Art Museum, Bequest of Mrs. Elizabeth B. Noyce, 1997. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*)

About Resource Library

Resource Library is a freely available online publication containing a collection of articles and essays honoring the American experience through its art. Since 1997, Resource Library and its predecessor Resource Library Magazine have cumulatively published 1,300+ articles and essays written by hundreds of identified authors, thousands of other texts not attributable to named authors, plus 24,000+ images, all providing educational and informational content related to American representational art. Texts and related images are provided almost exclusively by museum, gallery and art center sources.

All published materials provide educational and informational content to students, scholars, teachers and others. Most materials relate to exhibitions. Materials may include whole exhibition gallery guides, brochures or catalogues or texts from them, perviously published magazine or journal articles, wall panels and object labels, audio tour scripts, play scripts, interviews, blogs, checklists and news releases, plus related images.

Resource Library is published by Traditional Fine Arts Organization (TFAO).

What you won't find:

User-tracking cookies are not installed on our website. Privacy of users is very important to us. You won't find annoying banners and pop-ups either. Our pages are loaded blazingly fast. Resource Library contains no advertising and is 100% non-commercial. .

(left: JP Hazeltine, founding editor, Resource Library)

Links to sources of information outside our website are provided only as referrals for your further consideration. Please use due diligence in judging the quality of information contained in these and all other websites. Information from linked sources may be inaccurate or out of date. We neither recommend or endorses these referenced organizations. Although we include links to other websites, we take no responsibility for the content or information contained on other sites, nor exert any editorial or other control over them. For more information on evaluating web pages see our General Resources section in Online Resources for Collectors and Students of Art

How much can I trust what Resource Library or Resource Library Magazine has published?

Many Resource Library and Resource Library Magazine pages published from 1997 through 2016 contain articles and essays written by named authors within the Author Study and Index. Each of those texts was published with the author's permission, or in some cases by another party, or combined with that of another party. Most artilces were derived from institutional sources named in the Art Museum, Gallery and Art Center index. Most of those artilces follow closely the text funished by the institution. Sources and persmisions are cited on texts containing articles and essays.

When we published over time more than one article or essay from an institution named in the Art Museum, Gallery and Art Center index, we created a sub-index page containing links to each article or essay concerning that institution, plus available information on its location and other descriptive information. A typical notation at the end of an article or essay might be "Read more information, articles and essays concerning this institutional source by visiting the sub-index page for the (named institution) in Resource Library (or Resource Library Magazine in instances of publication by Traditional Fine Arts Organization's predecessor)" or similar wording.

How to find contents on our site using search engines

Conduct keyword searches within TFAO's website and Resource Library, using the advanced search feature of Google and Yahoo, or enter site:tfaoi.org before entering keywords in a basic search. Also see Indexes and information retrieval for more information.

Dead links

Besides what we published, a wide variety of materials were posted by museums for their exhibitions. Contents on a museum's own page for an exhibition may have included narrative paragraphs about the exhibition, photos of art objects, plus links to: a press release for the exhibition, newspaper and magazine articles, promotional PSA videos, lecture videos, gallery guides, brochures and checklists.

Over time, many of our Topics in American Art links to information posted by museums for their exhibitions were lost due to link rot. Because of that loss, we ask museums to permanently make available materials about special exhibitions on their websites. Most museum websites have a "past exhibitions" section. Often, when information about an exhibition is first posted by a museum, a permanent URL is created that is carried forward in website sections for future, current and past exhibitions.

Upon discovery that museums hosting exhibits removed public access to their previously posted URLs, rather than remove our reference in its entirety, in our Topics in American Art we now only remove the discontinued URL, retain the link to the museum plus our informative text, then color our reference gray. By keeping the exhibit name and our link to the hosting museum, you may easily contact the museum to inquire about its previously posted exhibit information. You can also copy exhibit and museum names as keywords for a Google search. This approach often works when a museum has changed the URL for an exhibit without providing a new pathway to it.

In times past, unfortunately in hindsight, we somtimes erased a whole citation when we found a dead link to it. However, often all is not lost. Since iterations of our pages have been permanently saved by other archives -- often yearly -- since 1997, you may be able to look back through time to find information we long ago deleted from our pages because outside links became dead. If you come across a dead link, see Durability and protection of content for hints on how to access lost material through online archives.

Visiting museums

To help you plan visits to institutions exhibiting American art when traveling see How to make the most of your visit to an exhibition and Sources of Articles Indexed by State within the United States.

See TFAO's Museums Explained to learn about the "inner workings" of art museums and the functions of staff members. In the exhibitions section find out how to get the most out of a museum visit. See definitions for a glossary of museum-related words used in articles. Also see notes about our 2011 editing project.

A special request to museums

We ask museums to permanently make available materials about special exhibitions on their websites. Most museum websites have a "past exhibitions" section. Often, when information about an exhibition is first posted, a permanent URL is created that is carried forward in website sections for future, current and past exhibitions. A common format is: https//museum name.org/exhibitions/name of exhibit.

Once a museum has decided upon a URL format for presenting online exhibition information, it is important that the format be maintained permanently. This is to prevent dead links in articles, research papers and other materials published by outside persons and organizations.

An effect of Covid temporary museum closures in 2020-21 was that scores of art museums greatly enhanced the quality and quantity of online exhibit presentations.

TFAO catalogues providing useful resources

American Representational Art - links to dozens of topics in American Representational Art

Distinguished Artists - a national registry of historic artists

Videos Online - a comprehensive catalogue of online full motion videos streamed free to viewers

Audio Online - a catalogue of online streaming audio recordings

Collections of Historic American Art - notable private collections

Geographic Tour of American Representational Art History - a catalogue of articles and essays that describe the evolution of American art from the inception of the United States to WWII.

Articles and Essays Online - substantive texts published outside of Resource Library

Videos - an authoritative guide to videos in VHS and DVD format

Illustrated Audio Online - streaming online narrated slide shows

Books - general reference books published on paper

Magazines - paper-published magazines and journals

Interactive media - CD-ROM format